200,000mi OVERHAUL

My car reached the 200,000mi mark two months ago and as you all know its time for new belt and a few other bits.

The engine received the following parts:

- Timing Belt
- Water Pump
- New Belt pulleys
- New coil packs from 3.2L CTS
- New Bosch spark plugs
- New Harmonic Balancer
- Coolant Flush
- MOBIL 1 10W30 Oil change. wix filter
Dropped the oil pan to see how things look inside, engine was spotless, no sludge, no staining, no dirt in the oil pan.




Trans Service:
Dropped the pan, it looked spotless inside it.
Installed new WIX filter and DEXRON 6 oil
Installed new MOBIL 1 75w90 fluid in the rear diff.


Suspension:
New sport struts
New Air shocks REAR
New sway bar links.
New rear wishbone bushings
Alignment.
4.15deg of camber on the front after front end work.



Also got a new license plate front and rear...

Here are a few extra images from the car this summer and fall.

The car from a Cars and Coffee Detroit, mini gathering.

Night shots with Iphone.



And my favorite spot on a bridge near my house...

200k, awesome! With all service you did, could be expected more 100k trouble free :-) Good Job mate!

She is near the 250,000mi mark now... pushing strong no issues to report. I will be happy to see 300k soon.

Here is a small video showing how easy it is to get her sideways...

wow that is pretty good. Youve put a lot of money in this car man! its good to see its lasted this long. I just turned 150 and a lot of little stuff is going wrong (window switches breaking, coolant level sensor not working, button coating coming off) but i still love the car and plan on driving it till the wheels fall off. And yes it is nice to be able to turn off the TCS sometimes.

yomincarr wrote:wow that is pretty good. Youve put a lot of money in this car man! its good to see its lasted this long. I just turned 150 and a lot of little stuff is going wrong (window switches breaking, coolant level sensor not working, button coating coming off) but i still love the car and plan on driving it till the wheels fall off. And yes it is nice to be able to turn off the TCS sometimes.

If it's only problems you have in your Catera, i would say, you have no problems at all ))) Lol. After swapping the engines, I get some misfire on cold, engine shakes a bit, after couple minutes of driving everything is perfect, stable idles, no problems, but i still have MIL on. Tried some things to change, but the problem still isn't solved yet. I blame electric connections or crankshaft sensor, since the car was parked in some wet enviroment for few years, even got rusted which is not usual at all in WA state, It's my third Catera and basically the first, that has some rust on replaceable parts like control arms e.t.c. By the way guys, any ideas regardless misfire?

When i had slight misfires and hesitation I got codes for passenger bank downstream sensor. bough used one off ebay for 30$ swapped it and all problems went away. That was my experience with it. A scan of the MIL should indicate where the problem is.

It only sais misfires on some of cylinders, nothing points me to any sensors unfortunately. Since this car was rest for 6 years, who knows what could happen to them... I just don't want to replace everything, regardless misfire issues. I replaced air pump valve, I think crankshaft sensor as well, don't remember exactly. Even so, sometimes rpm's stock at 5.500, and shakes at cold, like some of cylindres shot. Maybe crankshaft sensor is wrong, because the engine block is from Saturn L300, it was the cheapest in the area, that I found. Just went to rockauto and looks like I just found the issue ))) Saturn and Cadi have different sensors, camshaft's ones are the same. Hope it's the issue.